Business Process Reengineering in the Public Sector

Business Process Reengineering: “The
fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to
achieve dramatic improvements in critical modern measures of
performance, such as cost, quality, service, and speed”. Hammer and
Champy, 1993

“Speed, quality, cost – pick any
two” - old business adage

So Business Process Reengineering (BPR)
is by definition 'radical change'; that phrase does not spring
immediately to mind when we consider the public sector. Of course
there are good reasons for that.

Leavitt’s Diamond, a
long-established approach to looking at organizations, proposes that
every organizational system is made up of four main components:

People - the employees of the
organization, considered from the perspective of both their role in
the organization, and the skills and knowledge they bring to the
task.

Task - again, two perspectives to
consider; how are things being done, and what are we trying to
accomplish.

Structure – includes the hierarchical
structure – i.e. the org chart - but also the flow of information,
accountability and responsibility between management levels and work
units.

Technology – the various tools, both
hardware and software, which aid or facilitate tasks.

A fundamental observation from
Leavitt’s Diamond is that changing any of these 4 components will
necessitate changes in the others as well. And as all of us current
and former public sector managers know, there are constraints against
change in the public sector.

So does this mean 'radical change' - i.e. Business Process Reengineering - is
impossible in the public sector? No, it just means you have to 1 –
be clear on the vision of what you want to achieve; 2 – constrain
the scope of your Business Process Reengineering initiative to something manageable
within your authority / responsibility envelope; and 3 – have
tolerance for uneven progress and the inevitable roadblocks that will
appear.

Here's an example from a records
management reengineering project I conducted a number of years ago.
The basic objective was to prepare the organization for the advent of
electronic records management.

The tasks included consolidating 11
separate records repositories into one, investing in both new
hardware and software, integrating the mail and distribution service
with records management, and training people on new systems and work
processes.

We had a clear vision of the end state;
in fact I hired a graphic artist to render a picture of the new
combined Mail, Records and Distribution Centre. We built a strong
business case demonstrating the benefits. We had the director with
responsibility for both mail and records on board. And we patiently,
systematically dealt with objections and obstacles raised by both
staff and customers of the current records centres.

For example, many records customers
believed that if we took away – i.e. consolidated – 'their'
records centre, service would suffer. They were absolutely sure they
needed a records repository immediately adjacent to their work
location.

We overcame this objection by focusing
on service standards; in other words, we helped them understand that
what they needed were records, not records offices. We asked
key client groups how quickly they records requests needed to be
fulfilled, and offered them choices.

The answers tended to cluster around
'within 8 hours' of request'. So we created a service standard that
said all records requests received before 2PM would be fulfilled same
day; requests after that time would be fulfilled the next morning by
9AM.

And we used the mail-room staff to deliver the records on their
regular mail runs in morning and afternoon. Of course customers could
still choose to come to the new service centre to pick up records
quicker than that is desired.

Besides the other objectives, we also
achieved an annual 6-figure cost savings for the mail and records
operation, a relatively small section of the department. Another
Business Process Reengineering initiative I was involved in achieved a 1,000-per
cent increase in throughput i.e. a 10-fold improvement.

If you follow a structured approach,
manage the scope appropriately, and work within your limitations,
dramatic public sector change is possible (bin dere, Dundas).

New training: If you are seeking efficiency and service delivery improvements in your organization, you might be interested in an exciting and excellent new series of
training workshops for public sector managers and executives coming
this fall.

The courses will be led by top-notch
subject matter experts, many of whom are former public servants
themselves. I've known many of them for years, and can vouch for
their expertise and ability to transfer knowledge (I'm not much
better myself ;-) You will have seen many of the names in Canadian Government Executive Magazine.

I will be delivering one of the courses
on 'Business Process Reengineering and Change Management in the
Public Sector'. If you need to find some efficiencies in your
organization, this course will be a good place to start.

We are currently setting the schedule
of courses, so check out the list below; if you are interested in one
or more, let us know and we'll give those choices priority
scheduling. If you want us to send you more information, include your contact info in the form.

We can also arrange custom training on your site for any of the topics shown below.

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Business Process Reengineering

Data and Information Management

Governance and Accountability

Integrated Management

Knowledge Management

Planning and Performance Measurement

Risk Management

Strategic Planning/Strategic Management

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